I can't turn on the oven without reading glasses. I mean, sure, I can turn the knob, but I'd best go find my reading glasses if I want to set it to any particular temperature.

This is all a bit frustrating. There are many ways that I'm just going to have to adjust to seeing in a different way than I've ever done. I'm a total newbie at using this new vision. My whole life, if I couldn't see something clearly, I could just get my head 2 inches away from it & then I could see fine. Now, I don't have that. If something is small enough, then there's just no way I can see/read it without the reading glasses. I still often instinctively pull things closer to my face, but now it accomplishes nothing.

I haven't been feeling very comfortable with my art supplies these past couple days, either, but I remember that before the surgery I had several times tried to work with my left eye covered, figuring that I would be better able to do fine work if I eliminated the contaminated vision coming from that direction, but I found that—for some reason I really can't explain and don't understand—I still felt most adept and comfortable using both eyes. So I figure that how I'm feeling right now is very possibly no representation whatsoever of how I'll be feeling once the second surgery is done & I'm using both eyes simultaneously.

My intern at CWC looked all serious and asked me what that would mean for me, if—as I had been speculating—I might not be able to do the same kind of nitpicky detailed art anymore. But I just shrugged & said, "I'll figure out some other way to do art." I may not feel very certain about what my vision situation is going to be in the long term, but I am certain about my own ability to work with it and make things good. Things will just be different, probably in ways I still can't predict. I'll still make them good.

I've always been a very visual person, so messing with my eyes messes with all my primary ways of understanding and interacting with the world. It's disconcerting and a little distressing, but it isn't going to be this way permanently. To deal with my short-term issues, I might try to read up on Siri tonight, because I haven't been writing (even just emails) as much as I would like for quite some time now—due to the vision situation—and i've been mostly just avoiding the computer altogether these past few days for the same reason. If I were to conquer Siri, that might become nearly a non-issue.

But I don't feel too urgent about it, because right now I'm just in a very short-term situation that is awkward, with my new eye (clear for distance & blurry for close objects) trying to work in coordination with my old eye (blurry for everything except stuff 2 inches from my face). I need to get through these next 3 1/2 days of weirdness, and then have the surgery on my right eye ... and THEN I can start actually figuring out what things might be like in the long run & how I can deal with them. Right now things are just extra uniquely weird for a few days & I don't think I can make very accurate assessments of future possibilities based on the current data.

In any case, I've had very little headache today. It's 7 p.m. & I've only taken one Tylenol #4 tablet (in two half-tablet doses). I even wore clips in my hair part of the day. I also used the stinkiest art-fixative spray on the planet. And I'm still dragging with fatigue after 4 consecutive days of poor sleep. But this all has not added up to headaches, so that's a big YAY.